rid of him?" Ferderand asked.
"I'm assuming authority here," the sheriff stated, and looked over at Ferderand. "I'll let you know if I want you to get rid of anyone."
Ferderand straightened up. "Captain Esparza is my C.O. I don't take orders from you."
"You putting up with that, Sheriff?" Elías demanded. "There have been at least three murders out here! Adoración and Jessika are both dead as well, thrown out in the dirt like garbage! Did these rangers even report that to you?"
"Yes, there is that. Who shot Adoración and Jessika?" the sheriff enquired calmly. Gabriel decided he liked the woman. Obviously, Sheriff Van Amersvoort wasn't going to be rushed to a conclusion by Elías.
"There was a gunfight," Gabriel answered. "I accused Jessika of leaving the base-camp at night. Adoración interfered, and when I called her on it, she went for her gun. I tried to stop them, but couldn't, so they fell."
"I was there, Sheriff," Philibert announced. "They drew first. It was self-defence."
"What about the missing plants?" Sheriff Van Amersvoort asked. "Have you found them yet?"
"I expect we did," Gabriel bluffed, and his eyes swung over to lock with Ashok's. "I expect we've found them alright!"
The expression in Ashok's eyes said it all, Gabriel knew he had guessed right. Ashok was the brains behind this thing, now Gabriel just had to figure out the rest of it, whatever it was.
"We've got 15,000 missing plants, Sheriff," Gabriel stated. "Poachers might steal a few dozen, ship them off to private buyers as novelties, but 15,000? Only a government would buy that bulk, so the plants can't have been taken by poachers."
"Sheriff," Furaha Tib interrupted. "Have you had many issues with poachers in the chasma?"
"Yes, but not 15,000 plants worth. Maybe a dozen or so plants disappear in a season, and like Gabriel said, we expect they're going to private buyers," the sheriff answered.
"If the plants weren't taken by poachers then they're still in the ground," Furaha continued. "Gabriel did you find any unmarked plants?"
"No, every plant has had a bio-marker," Gabriel answered. "We thought it was a bit odd. There should be some first gen still in the ground."
"Then the masking agent is disguising the Arreola plants to look like another bio-marker," Furaha continued rationally. "I noticed that you just registered a new bio-marker earlier this season Mr. Nibhanupudi, what was wrong with your existing bio-marker?"
Gabriel glanced at Ashok as Furaha had turned her attention to him, and saw the man flinch when Furaha mentioned that second bio-marked. His head jerked around to look at Furaha with rage in his eyes, which quickly turned to terror as he looked over to the sheriff.
"A second bio-marker?" Sheriff Van Amersvoort asked frowning. "Why do you need a second bio-marker?"
"And how did you get 20,000 plants into the ground already using this new bio-marker?" Furaha continued. "I checked with the registry office in Nueva Buenos Aires. He's placed an estimate of 20,000 plants for this year's audit using this new bio-marker.
"Are you accusing me of being an embezzler?" Ashok yelled at Furaha. Then he looked back at the sheriff. "You can see through this Sheriff. These rangers are a bunch of capitalists. Gabriel was a Desert Ranger here last year and inflated the numbers so Cecilia would get over paid for her plants! They are conspiring to blame me for all this. Gabriel is a known sniper, and all of his crew are ex-military! And they all work for Ms. Tib. Anyone of them could have shot Cecilia!"
Van Amersvoort continued to stare at Ashok without responding to anything he said and then repeated her question. "Why do you need a second bio-marker?"
Ashok's eyes shifted, and the he sputtered out, "I need a second marker, because, ah, I'm, planning ahead, yes to sell the plants in batches. That's what I'm doing. Just good business sense!"
"When did you plant these new seedlings?" the sheriff asked.
"Earlier this season," Ashok answered. "About a month ago."
Van Amersvoort continued to calmly stare at Ashok, "You managed to plant 20,000 seedlings in the last month without anyone noticing? That doesn't sound too likely."
"I had a lucky season," Ashok argued. "It happens sometimes."
"You registered the estimate when you registered the bio-marker," Furaha interjected. "You knew ahead of time you would have this good luck."
"The whole thing sounds unlikely," Sheriff Van Amersvoort observed. "How's about you tell me where you were this afternoon?"
"Hold up sheriff," Elías Medina protested. "Just because this scientist thinks Ashok is an embezzler, it doesn't follow that Cecilia did. How would she know about this second bio-marker?"
"Cecilia wasn't an idiot, and she knew her business," the sheriff observed. "If this scientist can find out Ashok has a second bio-marker, I'm positive that Cecilia could."
Ashok was sweating under his respirator-mask. "This doesn't prove anything! All you have is conjecture! Having a second bio-marker isn't illegal, and neither is having good luck!"
Elías Medina had moved close to Ashok, while Chidimma had moved toward her bike. A slight movement by Ale Rodríguez drew Gabriel's attention, and he saw that the former Sudamérican soldier was moving toward his bike, where his rifle was mounted. Gabriel Esparza shifted his position so he had both Elías and Ashok in view. Glancing around he noticed that most of the rangers were alert to the changing scene. Only the sheriff and Furaha seemed unaware of what was about to happen.
"Furaha, get ready to drop," Gabriel whispered. "It's about to go down."
He had whispered, but he noticed the sheriff's subtle reaction. The sheriff's eyes shifted from Ashok toward Ale, and then to Elías. Ashok drew first, quickly, but Gabriel was faster. Even as Ashok's gun started to lift, Gabriel's laser bolt burned through Ashok, and seconds later he crumpled to the ground. Gabriel was swinging his gun around towards Elías when a laser bolt burned through him as well, fired by Ferderand. He turned just in time to see Ale Rodríguez fall as well, the sheriff had dropped him. Chidimma was on a bike and gone as soon as the fighting had started, leaving everyone else standing in a cloud of dust.
Gabriel Esparza holstered his gun and then grabbed for support. Something was wrong. He realized he had been shot. It must have been Ale, before the sheriff shot him. Furaha rushed to Gabriel's side. "Mpendwa! You've been shot!"
"Just a little," he put his hand on her shoulder and grinned, "Looks like a flesh-wound."
He woke up several days later in the Rotterdam medical clinic. Ale's laser had ruptured an artery causing Gabriel to bleed out rapidly in the the thin Martian atmosphere. While he was unconsciousness Sheriff Van Amersvoort had determined that Ashok's 20,000 new plants were all Arreola plants with a masking agent distorting the bio-marker, and the rangers had started harvesting the plants. The dust storm to the south was expanding, and Gabriel ordered half of the rangers to stay in the chasma under Ferderand's command to complete the plant collection, while he took the other half of the rangers to southeast to Noctis Labyrinthus to begin the planting their new biome.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends